


Turn the White Snow Red

by burkesl17



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 03:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5613118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burkesl17/pseuds/burkesl17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick didn’t have any warning, the bike was going out from under him. There was just a moment of sudden unsteadiness, falling not flying, pain as he hit the icy ground and then something hitting him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn the White Snow Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cienna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cienna/gifts).



> Dear Cienna I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year and enjoy this icy little story about poor, horribly injured, frozen Dick! All my love Burkesl17.

Dick didn’t have any warning, the bike was going out from under him. There was just a moment of sudden unsteadiness, falling not flying, pain as he hit the icy ground and then something hitting him.

Dick didn’t have any warning, the bike was going out from under him. There was just a moment of sudden unsteadiness, falling not flying, and pain as he hit the icy ground, and then something hit him.

Everything went dark for a moment, he couldn’t breathe, he didn’t really feel anything aside from pressure, and then the pain again. Hot, wet and sharp at the back of his head, enormous pressure and ache across his torso and legs.

He couldn’t breath, but he had to, and then in the distance two lights appeared and became all he could see. 

He must have passed out, he had a sense of time gone, and when he opened his eyes he felt the pain hit him hard everywhere, all at once. 

“Nightwing?” 

There were lights, which were suddenly blocked out by a dark shape leaning over him. Batman he realised, and he tried to sit up but there was too much weight on him, and two hands, one pressing down on each shoulder. Batman’s heavy, stronger hand and a smaller lighter one.

Turning his head slightly he saw Damian in the beam of light.

“Don’t move you idiot,” Damian snapped.

He blinked slowly, trying to clear his vision. His mouth tasted of blood.

“What happened?”

“You came off your motorbike,” Bruce replied, his hand tightened on Dick’s shoulder. “It’s on top of you and I think you have a concussion. 

There was snow drifting down Dick realised, caught in the lights of the car. It seemed to sparkle.

“Nightwing!” 

Batman’s voice, snapping at him, and Dick tried to turn towards him, like he always did, like he was the real centre of gravity, but Damian snapped at him again, “Stop moving.”

“Nightwing, you need to stay awake.”

“And you need to stay still.”

“Robin’s right, you need to stay still. We can’t move you until the ambulance and fire service come, I don't want to risk making any damage worse.”

“Right,” Dick replied. Damage from a fall, from a crash, could be bad, it was so cold…

Above him Bruce and Damian were talking, Damian talking about lifting the bike, Bruce disagreeing, it was too cold…

“Nightwing…come on, wake up.”

He’d passed out again, he wished he was still passed out, because he really, really hurt now. His head felt clearer though and he could see both Batman and Robin lit up by the Batmobile’s headlights. Damian was standing with his arms wrapped around himself and Bruce was kneeling next to Dick, looking worried even through the cowl.

“I’m awake.”

Bruce glared at him. “You need to stay awake for awhile. The snow’s coming down so heavily in Gotham the ambulance is having trouble getting through.”

“It’s going to hit us soon,” Damian said. “And then it won’t matter if we move the bike or not, because Grayson will suffocate in a snow drift.”

Dick tried to smile, and reach out his uninjured arm towards him. “I’m not going to suffocate, Robin.”

“And we’re not moving the bike,” Bruce said, in his most Batman voice.

Damian ignored him, crouched down next to Dick and said, “Can you feel your feet?”

“My feet.”

“Yes. If you can we’ll know you didn’t damage your spine.”

He could, and his legs which hurt like hell, one of them was definitely broken. But Bruce was right he realised, if he had come across someone like this he would have told them to hold on and wait, that the damage could come from the movement or be happening slowly and movement would make it worse.

He told Damian that, while trying to reach out and reassure him too. Damian didn’t look convinced but stopped arguing and reluctantly took Dick’s hand when he waggled his fingers at him, and sighed and said, “If it makes you feel better, Grayson.”

“No names in the field,” Bruce growled by rote and Dick and Damian both looked around at the empty, snowy road and grinned at each other.

More time dragged past them, the pain got worse as did the deep heavy weight and the snow got thicker, swirling past them in the Batmobile’s headlights.

Dick and Damian played word games, which helped take his mind of the pain and both their minds of the cold while Bruce tried to get updates on the ambulance. He was speaking, slowly, furiously at the operator, but Dick could hear the replies too and they didn’t change. The snow was too thick, the road too dangerous, an ambulance wouldn’t get through, a helicopter couldn’t take off in the wind.

He heard Tim and Alfred too, saying the same thing, they'd tried the Batcopter but had failed over and over again.

He was shivering now, his teeth chattering, and Damian rather ineffectually tried to brush the snow off him.

When Bruce closed the connection, looking like he wanted to smash the communicator into the road, Dick squeezed Damian’s hand and nodded at the Batmobile. Damian glared, but went and Bruce came over to kneel beside Dick again.

Dick tried the finger wrangling trick again, and even though the pain he had to try not smile at how similar Bruce and Damian’s expressions were.

“Come on, Batman.”

Bruce did take his hand, but very slowly, as though holding their fingers together hurt him.

Dick couldn’t really feel much through the gloves, but he tightened his grip anyway.

He was beginning to feel less altogether he realised, and knew that wasn’t good.

For a moment neither of them said anything, and when Dick had finally got his thoughts together and opened his mouth to speak, Bruce snapped, “No, don’t say it. You’re getting out of this.”

Dick glared, “Bruce it’s been hours, if there are internal injuries it’s probably too late.”

“And if they were serious you’d probably already be dead.”

“And I’m getting really cold, I’m losing feeling. This isn’t…we both know…this isn’t looking good.”

At some point Bruce had turned off the lenses in his cowl, and his eyes were fierce in the shadows as he said, “You are not going to die Nightwing. I will not allow it.”

“You can’t hold back death.”

“I’ll hold it back from you.”

There was nothing to say to that, so Dick just tilted his head to rest his cheek on their joined hands.

“At least let me say…”

“No.”

“You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”

“That’s kept you alive more than once.”

He could only nod in response, tired again and cold. Tiredness was settling on him like the weight of the bike, like the cold eating into his limbs and making them as heavy as the metal.

He didn’t pass out, but time seemed to skip and slow and Damian was saying, “He’s going to get hypothermia.”

He probably already had hypothermia and then he heard Bruce say gently, like he hadn't spoken to Dick since he was a child, “Nightwing, stay awake.” He blinked back to awareness and he could see Bruce’s face, his whole face and something black was being tugged around his shoulders and chest.

“No…no face in the field.”

“That’s right.” Bruce looked straight at him and said, “But I told you I wasn’t going to let you die.”

His feet were being wrapped up too and he realised Robin had lost his cape. He looked skinny and small without it.

“You need to stay warm too,” he said to Damian.

Damian just nodded, he looked upset and angrier than ever and Dick stopped trying to focus on them and just stay awake.

Some time later, Damian had been banished to the Batmobile, the wind had stopped but snow was still coming down, covering Dick like a blanket.

Bruce had stretched out over him as best he could but it was hard without putting more weight on him. Their faces were right next to each, breathing fogging and misting together.

“Bruce…”

“Dick.”

“No names in the field.”

Bruce cupped his cheek and pressed their foreheads together. Dick was drifting and knew he should care more, but he couldn’t, the only thing worth thinking about was that touch and he tilted his face to bring their lips together. The kiss was just a brush of lips, soft and a point of warmth in the cold and darkness was stealing over him and then Bruce kissed him again, and the world lit up behind his shut eyes.

Then Bruce was gone, his hand was dropped and Dick realised the brightness was a real, there was a helicopter above them with the bat symbol on it. Damian was running across the snow, waving, Tim was sliding down a line from the helicopter’s door and Dick’s last sight was of Bruce lit up by the lights, a shadow in the brightness.

Days had past, in hospital, in pain, in and out of consciousness. Then weeks of physiotherapy and taking care of stitches and downing painkillers and living with a slow grudging pain that never really left, and a cold that seemed to have lodged itself in his bones.

Dick had always hated being cold, but now he loathed it. He wore three jumpers at once and turned the heat up in his apartment. He lived on coffee and tea and soup. At night he couldn’t sleep without at least two blankets, despite how exhausted he was.

The worse thing was he wasn’t sure exactly what was real and what wasn’t. Had there been a kiss or not? Was it all true or just part of the hallucinatory cold, like the sparkly snow?

In the end he couldn’t take it and went to the Manor to hunt Bruce down. He hadn’t been to visit him since the doctors had said he was out of danger.

He found him in the Batcave. Hunched over the computer and staring at fuzzy CCTV images. Dick paused, watched him for a moment, suddenly unsure if he wanted to make this leap, if this was something that could lose him his safety net forever.

But he was a Grayson, leaping was what he did and he stepped forward and said, “So about that kiss.”

Bruce put the cup he’d been lifting to his mouth down so hard and suddenly that coffee splashed over the rim.

He turned very slowly, face blank, and Dick tried to smile as he took another step forward.

“It really happened then?”

Bruce nodded, clearly unsure what to say, and in Dick’s mind his fingers left the trapeze and he was flying as he said, “Want to to do it again?”

And then something close to hope, maybe even awe, crossed Bruce’s face and Dick grinned as he closed the distance between them and bent to kiss Bruce before he could talk himself out of it.

As their lips touched he felt warm for the first time in weeks.

THE END


End file.
